Why is Henry Ford a symbol of America’s success?
Henry Ford founded in 1902 his car company, the Ford Motor Company. It soon appeared as a non-traditional company as he used a revolutionary way of production: the assembly lines in a mass production. This new system aimed at reducing the time of production to lower costs and to gain in efficiency. Combined to a high salary policy to attract and keep the best workers—and also to allow them to buy Ford cars, this new method turned into a tremendous success key. Henry Ford became one of the richest men in the History of the United States, amassing a huge fortune thanks to his firms and the 161 patents he obtained in the US. As a prolific inventor, he left behind many technical innovations.

However, Henry Ford is not only well-known for being a tycoon. He also had a great influence on business and economics. From the beginning of the 20th century, and also in the post-WW2 period, his inventions helped the United States to be widely considered as specialist in mass production. Talking about Fordism often refers to that special period when people discovered and enjoyed mass consumption and full employment. In economics, Fordism stands for the second industrial revolution, which dramatically changed the lifestyle of American and West-European people. By applying Fordism to every industry, (even agriculture) feeding the whole planet was finally possible and even blue collars could buy a color television!

If that time has passed, Ford’s still in our minds. Yet he might be for incorrect reasons: Ford was no “good Samaritan” by giving wages twice as high as the average to his workers. He was just smarter than the other managers and proved to be a genius of his